What Sitting in Traffic Costs You

You know that waiting to get to work (or home) drives you nuts, but did you realize how much it’s costing you?

According to the 2010 Urban Mobility Report released Thursday by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, calculating the “congestion cost” for consumers — the value of the time delayed, at $16 an hour per person and $106 an hour for lost truck time, plus the cost of excess fuel consumption — finds that some consumers are paying more than $1,700 a year to get to and from work.

Among the findings:

Cost to the average commuter: $808 in 2009, compared with an inflation-adjusted $351 in 1982.